September & October 2007

Sheffield Homes customers in the Firshill, Pitsmoor, Burngreave and Darnall areas of the city are being offered the opportunity to drop in and meet the people who will be carrying out home improvement work in their areas over the next few years. The event will take place from 3 pm to 7pm on 7th November at the newly opened Vestry Hall in Burngreave.

Children from Stradbroke Primary School who were one of the winners in a competition organised by Sheffield Homes to create their own builder character, similar to TV favourite ‘Bob the Builder’, got an extra treat last week, with a visit to Kier’s Manor Lane site.

New football team, Throstles Girls Under 9 FC are hoping to head to the top of their league after receiving a brand new football strip from sponsors Wates Living Space.

 

The under 9 girls team from Darnall which plays in the Sheffield and Hallamshire Girls County League only started playing this season and needed a smart football strip for their matches.

Sheffield Homes has become the first locally based company to enter into a unique partnership with JobCentre Plus to provide job opportunities for long term unemployed people and hard to reach communities.

Sheffield Homes tenants at Callow Mount Sheltered Housing Scheme, Heeley, were given a lesson on how to be vigilant when it comes to cold calling from sales people and rogue traders, as part of the Gleadless Valley ‘Week of Action’, aimed at creating a cleaner, safer and greener place to live. 

Pupils from Ecclesfield Junior School saw themselves on the big screen after being invited to a special movie premier style showing of a DVD production, in which they were the stars. 

 

The DVD, which was produced by Sheffield Homes, was shot in Ecclesfield Junior School to showcase the preventative anti-social behaviour work carried out in schools by Sheffield Homes’ Community Engagement Teams. 

Residents in Sharrow are being asked to pull on their winter woollies and gardening gloves to get ready for a ‘blooming’ good spring.  Sharrow Partnership and Lansdowne Tenants and Residents Association are running a special winter bulb-planting event on Friday 2nd November on the Lansdowne estate to help brighten up the local area. 

 

Volunteers are welcome.

Sheffield Homes tenants were keen to dig in and help Community Foresters plant nine trees at Kinsey Road Sheltered Housing Scheme, High Green. 

 

The tree planting is part of an ongoing commitment by Sheffield Homes to not only brighten up the area around the Schemes but to also manage the tree population responsibly

Sheffield Homes are teaming up with interactive theatre company Dead Earnest to encourage pupils to think about the impact of anti-social behaviour on Sheffield’s communities. 

 

A special play, called neighbourhoody, has been developed by Sheffield Homes and Dead Earnest with the help of Year 10 pupils to highlight how anti-social behaviour can have a negative affect on neighbourhoods and people’s lives.

Apprentices from throughout Sheffield who are training for a career in the construction industry within the Sheffield Homes Decent Homes programme gathered in Barker’s Square, Sheffield to mark 250 apprentices having being recruited to the Construction JOBMatch Programme and to form a ‘giant number 250’. The giant number 250 was marked out by apprentices, dressed up in hard hats and high visibility vests.

 

 

 

Since it started in 1998 around 2,000 learners have been through the City Stewardship programme, which was set up as a partnership between Community Training Services (CTS), Sheffield Homes and Kier Sheffield.  Many of the learners on the programme go on to become apprentices with Kier, which is the case for the latest eight successful learners who have successfully got onto Kier’s 2007/08 apprenticeship scheme.

Sheffield Homes are launching special awards in memory of Paul Key, a local community champion and valued member of staff at Sheffield Homes.

 

The Paul Key Community Champions Awards aims to recognise people in the community that go the extra mile to help others.

 

Local builders who are working on the Sheffield Homes Decent Homes programme have been able to create much needed secure storage facilities for the Phillimore Youth Club. The project was carried out by a crack team from the Wates Living Space, as part of their annual Community Day. 

 

Staff from Sheffield Homes will be marking the start of Customer Service Week by officially launching free fire safety risk assessments, offered by South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue, for its customers.

 

National Customer Service Week, which runs from 1-7 October, is organised by the Institute of Customer Service as a week long celebration of customer service professionalism and commitment to providing excellent services to customers.

Sheffield Homes reported much improved levels of customer satisfaction to its Board of Directors at their meeting on the 18^th of September. Sheffield Homes is the housing management organisation in charge of managing over 40,000 Council properties on behalf of Sheffield City Council. The survey showed that 79.2% of Sheffield Homes customers were either very satisfied or fairly satisfied with the overall service provided by Sheffield Homes. This is a 6% increase on last year and also puts Sheffield Homes in the top quarter of all Local Authority and ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) landlords in the UK.

Staff from Sheffield Homes have pulled out all the stops to create a welcoming communal garden area for local residents in Ecclesfield.

Tenants and residents in Sheffield will be attending a special event hosted by Sheffield Homes as a thank you for helping to improve Sheffield’s neighbourhoods.  Sheffield Homes is running a special ‘Cleaner, Greener’ themed Residents Conference that aims to bring together members of tenants and residents associations (TARAs) across the city for the annual celebration.

 

This years event will be opened by a surprise ‘cleaner, greener’ celebrity who will be moving in from the North on a band of low pressure to bring sunshine to the people at the event!

Sheffield’ Lady Mayoress Kathleen Chadwick and residents from Newgate Close Sheltered Housing Scheme will be coming together to raise money for the Lord Mayors Charity.

Sheffield Homes has recruited two new tenant board members to help the housing management organisation deliver the future that council tenants want.  Following a city wide election, tenants Michael Shepherd and Byran Greenwood received the most votes and will now be taking their places on Sheffield Homes’ Board of Directors. Existing tenant board members Lily McCall and Jose Derrick were both re-elected to the board.

Sheffield Homes customers at Callow Tower Block on Callow Place in Gleadless Valley will be opening their doors this week (Thursday 6^th and Saturday 8^th September), so that members of the public can see what a typical tower block built in the 1960s looks like and share their experiences of what it’s been like to live in the blocks.

 

The tours of the tower block will be part of a heritage week organised by Sheffield’s Civic Trust. Callow Tower Block was built in 1963 and provides homes to over 60 Sheffield Homes’ customers.

Sheffield Homes are encouraging all its new and existing customers to take up the offer of a free fire safety risk assessment in their home.

 

The assessment, which is offered by South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue, includes fire fighters identifying potential fire risks in the home such as electrical hazards or heaters and fires, planning escape routes in the event of a fire and providing advice about caring for smoke alarms.